Wilson's Happiness
by IzzBot
Summary: Ramblings concerning Wilson's thoughts after 'Wilson's Heart.'


Disclaimer: House doesn't belong to me.

A/N: As soon as I believe my fics couldn't possibly get any ramblier, I write this…

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Happiness. It had flirted with him, teasing with light, playful caresses. It caused smiles to light his face and his heart to fill. Created a glow. But as soon as it had settled in, and he had begun to accept the unfamiliar and rare, it was torn away with all the grace of a bloody band-aid.

Blue eyes haunt his dreams. Consume his thoughts. There is an ambiguity surrounding them though. Sometimes he doesn't know whose eyes they are. Whether they are accompanied by soft blonde hair or scratchy scruff. This troubles him, antagonizes any sort of peace he may acquire. And his tortured mind has one more thing to anguish over.

He has grief. But, now, the ever ominous guilt slithers its way into his psyche. A shattering, paralyzing, and all around crappy combination. The names run through his mind over and over and over and OVER again. House. Amber. They interchange, intertwine, until they mix to create a low, urgent hum. Amber. House.

Happiness was a naïve notion thought up by a fool. He was the biggest fool. He was an idiot for believing that he was allowed this one kindness in life. Love so fleeting. It hurts so much because he can still feel it in his heart, her. It's heavy; it hurts. Phantom touches ghost across skin gone cold. Soul gone numb. Mind gone quiet, overloaded with emotion. And those thoughts. No touch could sooth them. Touches not even real – he was going crazy.

He needed to leave this bed, but his limbs weigh him down. Pain coils his heart into tight knots. And he lies on those soft sheets that smell like her, and he thinks.

If he thinks hard enough he can make himself believe. That it's before. Before the love of his life went away (choking on the word 'die', even though not spoken aloud), before he hated his best friend. He remembers smiles and laughter and joking and love. And, before, he was able to forget about the pain and depression that haunted his life. His screwed up life with its failing relationships and lonely rooms.

This relationship had been like no other. Because Amber was like no girl he had ever dated. He had thought the perpetual cycle of failed relationships would be broken. And to top that revelation was an even odder and more welcomed occurrence. In the form of his best friend.

House. The man had spent an immeasurable amount of time and energy for the sole purpose of annoying him. He had caused him to lose his job. He had been one of the reasons his marriages resulted in divorce papers, however disputed. All he had ever wanted from him was friendship, to know that House cared about him. That he needed him. And, now, with being exposed to the possibility of Wilson being taken away, he responded with the strangest gesture. Acceptance.

And House had fought for him, actually _fought _for him. And it wasn't through threats and blackmails, backstabbing and backhandedness. It wasn't a trick, a plan, a puzzle. He didn't plot to undermine his fledgling relationship. Instead he played fair, _compromised. _The impossible had happened – House had grown and learned to share. Took the world for what it was rather than how he wanted it to be. So there was some turbulence along the way, but it was still an accomplishment. Their screwed up relationship was that much closer to normality.

Until. Until it all went fucked up upside down and inside out. Irony is a bitch. And Fate is likewise. Was there a trade-off somewhere? House or Amber? Was he only allowed one person to love at a time? Or was the world really not big enough for the two aggressive personalities to share? Why did one have to go?

His stomach lurches at the eternal question – who would he choose? It is stupid and irrelevant and horrible but it has been slipping in and out of his mind all day. And this question adds its own weight to his overwhelming depression. There is no logical conclusion, reasoning has no influence, and so the idea flits aimlessly around his psyche. Torturing him with possibilities.

The sad thing is that he can't choose.

He didn't want it to be House.

He doesn't want it to be House lying cold, eyes closed, heart dead. Life gone out. Oh God.

If anything he wishes it is himself in Amber's place.

A sardonic voice floats through his mind. _Bargaining._

Fuck the five stages.

He buries his head in the pillow and screams a long, sorrowful howl until he has no breath left. Hollow. He notices the pillow is wet. He sobs harder. It does nothing to drown out the voices in his head. Ghosts laugh and laugh at the sad, lonely man.

The sky is a happy pink when his eyes are finally dry. Looking out at the dawn he is nothing, he feels nothing. Empty.

After everything, happiness was snuffed out so quick, like a candle extinguished by one puff of air. It was easy to imagine that it had never been there.

But it is never so easy, so clear. He, they, couldn't go back to before. He had known happiness and love, if only for a moment. It had changed him. And he will never forget.

And he will never forgive, he thinks.

House took that happiness away. That happiness which he had sought for so long. Apparently no good thing comes without consequence.

But why this?

Why _her?_

He didn't know where to go from here. Didn't know how to move from his spot on the bed, his hand holding a crumpled paper filled with loss. Didn't know how to sort through his muddled mind. He had forgotten how to think, to move, to breathe. To _live._

She was dead, but he was the ghost.

And as he drifted to sleep he thought not of his best friend lying on a hospital bed; nor of his lost girlfriend, lying cold. No, he thought only of the crisp feel of paper against his palm, of the wetness of tears against his cheeks, and of the sound of wind billowing outside. He saw the white of the ceiling, the glow of the light. But not her. No longer could he see her smile. Hear her voice. Feel her skin. Smell her scent.

Because she was gone.

And he was here, in this bed, not thinking of her, not thinking, not thinking, not thinking…

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A/N: Review, I suppose. I feel as if this fic became very confused at some point. But I wrote most of it directly after the season finale and it's just been sitting on my computer, taunting me, so I decided to hell with it.


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